


farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear

by Lise



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Hurt/Comfort, Mild torture, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Mid-Credits Scene, how is that not a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 09:12:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12956043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: Loki and the terrible, horrible, no good, very long delayed reckoning.





	farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone's gotta write one of these, right? (Or possibly more than one. We'll see what happens.) In your relatively light-hearted movies writing a whole bunch of angsty whump. That's just what I do. 
> 
> With thanks to Lena for her contribution to this fic.
> 
> I'm crossposting this from [my Tumblr](http://veliseraptor.tumblr.com), where I sometimes post things ahead of time, and also just generally ramble about writing, Loki, and other weird stuff.

“I have a feeling it will all work out,” Thor said, and the moment he did Loki knew that it absolutely, absolutely would not.

As usual, at least on these matters, he was right.

He felt the shadow before he registered what cast it. “What in the Nine is that,” Thor said, and Loki turned his head, looking up at the ship looming huge and dark over them. There was no particular sign of its allegiance, or its owner, but Loki’s stomach sank and his eyes widened, panic fluttering in his throat. He knew.

“That,” he said, and his voice came out sounding like little more than a croak, “is the beginning of the avalanche.”

Thor turned toward him, eye narrowing. “Don’t be cryptic.”

Loki swallowed hard several times. His every instinct was screaming at him to run - abandon ship and bolt for somewhere else. He had the Tesseract, he could do it-

He had the Tesseract.

Thanos had known the Tesseract was on Earth without ever seeing it. It gave off an energy bright as a dying star to anyone with the skill to sense it. There were protective spells on Odin’s Vault - had been protective spells on Odin’s Vault - but even if they were strong enough to completely hide its presence, the moment Asgard was gone that would have been lost, and  _he_ might have been on his way ever since the moment he’d known Loki had failed.

_He’s here because of you. Here, with a pathetic remnant of Asgard’s people, bereft of most of their skilled warriors, shattered by the loss of their home. Vulnerable. Weakened._

“Answer me,” Thor said, a little more of a growl.

“You were hunting Infinity Stones, yes?” Loki said. He cleared his throat to try to steady his voice. “You weren’t the only one.”

“You are  _still_ being cryptic.”

“My King,” Heimdall said, and Loki almost jumped. He didn’t turn, though, still staring at the ship, hovering over them like a vulture circling a wounded rabbit. “We are being hailed.”

_Don’t answer,_ Loki wanted to say, but that would be worse.

“Loki,” Thor said lowly. “If you know who this is, now is the time to tell me.”

Loki squeezed his eyes closed and opened them. It wasn’t as though it would make things  _worse._ “Are you familiar with the name ‘Thanos’?”

* * *

Thor wasn’t. Heimdall was.

Loki was privy to an intense, whispered argument between the two of them that he only barely paid attention to. They kept glancing in his direction, but Loki could not quite muster up the wherewithal to be concerned about that, too busy trying to think through his options.

If Thanos hadn’t destroyed them already - if he was trying to make contact - he was playing with his food. Toying with them. He must know the Tesseract was on board ( _your fault, your fault he’s here, look what you did)_  and Loki knew exactly what he was going to say.

_Give me the Tesseract and I will let you go._ He might even, for a little while. Might let them make it a league away before destroying this ship and everyone on it. Because he could.

Going through option after option, he couldn’t think of many that would be good enough. Thanos wanted the Tesseract. He might want it more than the satisfaction of destroying one small ship.

An idea was occurring to him, but even glancing at it made his stomach tie in knots.

“Go reassure the people,” Thor said, more audibly. “I can handle this.”

Loki stayed quiet.  _Wait. You might as well see what he does. What he says. Might as well…_

_Coward._

“Thanos,” Thor said. “He was the force behind you when you came to Earth.”

“Clever of you to work that out,” Loki said. He did not, Loki noticed, ask what might have happened. What that  _force_ might have done.

“Do not try to provoke me,” Thor said flatly. “It won’t work. You said  _nothing_ of this. You could have warned us-”

“I could have,” Loki agreed. “I didn’t. And now he is here. What do you want me to say?”

Thor growled. “Why  _didn’t_ you?”

_Because I was frightened. Because I hoped it would not come to this. Because I wanted to forget everything, all of it, pretend it never happened._

“You should answer sooner rather than later,” Loki said instead. “The longer you delay, the worse it will be.”

Thor shook his head. “We will speak more of this later. You will come with me. But stay out of sight.”

Well, Loki thought a little bitterly, that was a kindness.

_No. I don’t think we will speak of this later. Slip one noose and another closes._

_You brought him here, Loki. You need to get him away._

* * *

He sat where he couldn’t see the holo-screen when the communications line opened. Hearing his voice was almost worse. His ears buzzed and he only absorbed one in three words, Thor’s cautious answers.  _Cautious. Thor._ Two words he would not have thought to put in the same sentence.

He would be a good king.

“What do you want?” Thor asked.

“There are two things that belong to me on your vessel,” Thanos said.

_Two things,_ Loki thought, and hunched his shoulders.

“Two things,” Thor said. “And what are those?”

“The object you know as the Tesseract,” Thanos said. Loki squeezed his eyes closed, waiting for it. “And the one who calls himself your brother.”

Loki swallowed, sure it was audible. He pressed back into the wall like it would swallow him. Thor was quiet.

“I do not have the Tesseract,” he said finally. “It was lost when Asgard burned.”

“No,” Thanos said. “It was not. I suggest you look to Loki, if you are indeed unaware.”

Loki cringed again.

“I suppose,” Thor said after another long silence, “I do not need to ask what happens if I should refuse.”

“It would be unfortunate.” Thanos’s voice vibrated through his bones and Loki shuddered. “I will give you some time to consider.”

Silence. Loki held very still, breathing shallowly, his heart pounding in his ears. “So,” he managed to make himself say, finally. “What are you going to do?”

“You do have the Tesseract, then,” Thor said. “You took it-”

“From the Vault, yes,” Loki said. “How did you think I got away?” A pair of fists were squeezing his lungs. “Was I planning to mention it? Probably not. Why does Thanos want me in addition? Two reasons, I would guess: because he promised eternal torment if I failed him, which I did, and because he wants to see if you will refuse. If you do, he will have the excuse he needs to annihilate you all. If you do not, it will have been an interesting experiment nonetheless.” He swallowed hard. “Does that answer your questions, more or less?”

Thor said nothing, and Loki forced himself to look at him. He didn’t know how his face looked, but Thor looked…less angry than Loki would have expected. He looked like he was trying to think.

“There’s one good choice and you know it,” Loki said.

“I do not,” Thor said flatly, though the flicker in his eye said otherwise.

“You are a king now. You have to think broadly-”

“By surrendering the Tesseract to a being, Heimdall informs me, of unparalleled malevolence?”

_Priorities,_ Loki thought dazedly.  _The other’s easier, isn’t it._

“It is either the Tesseract or the entire remains of your people,” Loki said.

“ _Our_ people,” Thor corrected. He narrowed his eye. “Could you craft some trick, some imitation of…”

“No,” Loki said. “Nothing I could do would even come close. There is no chance it would fool him. You need to-”

“I need to  _think._ ” Thor paced, his stride tight and his shoulders tense. Loki watched him and took a breath, as deep as he could manage.

“I could try to stall him,” he said. “Perhaps make some…something. If you were quick - maybe there is a way you can use the Tesseract. You have your own magic, if you could master it you might be able to take this ship out of range-”

“ _If,_ ” Thor said. “ _Could try. Maybe._ ” He shook his head. “I cannot risk those relying on me on a chance.”

Loki’s throat closed. “I’d make it a good chance.”

“No,” Thor said roughly. “You won’t. You will stay here, on  _this_ ship, and help me find a way out of this.”

“Don’t be sentimental now-”

Thor rounded on him, his eye crackling. Quite literally. “I  _just_ got you back,” he said. “I am not going to lose you again.”

Loki felt something go out of him. He stared at Thor.

Not ignoring him, then, he thought dazedly. He’d simply taken it for a given that it was never an acceptable option.  _I think it best that we never see each other again,_ he’d said, like a knife in the heart, and Loki had been waiting for him to take it back, but maybe Thor had never meant it. Maybe he’d been repeating the words Loki had been giving him for years, forcing him to face that the prospect of never seeing Thor again made him feel sick.

He loved Thor. He’d always loved Thor. Desperately, hopelessly, fatally.

“I understand,” he said finally. Thor nodded and turned away again. Loki pushed himself to his feet, swaying briefly before he steadied himself. Walking over, he could see the ship looming vast and terrible. “Thor,” he said. “I…”

He trailed off, stepping up to Thor’s side. “Do you remember what I said?” He asked quietly. “The day of your coronation. Just before…”

Thor gave him a sidelong look, one eyebrow lifting. “‘Nice feathers,’” he said. A laugh stuttered in Loki’s throat.

“No,” he said. “Not that.”

Loki had kept the nasty little thing. He’d imagined it might be useful.

Thor didn’t have time to shout before the obedience disk dropped him. Loki wouldn’t have long. He had to move fast.

At least it wasn’t far to the shuttle.

* * *

Loki’s intention - his  _hope -_ was that he could take the shuttle just far enough to catch Thanos’s attention and draw him off, and then use the Tesseract to jump somewhere far away. If he could keep moving that way, at least he could buy some time. Probably not forever, but at least for a while. Maybe in that time he’d think of something else.

He’d known it was thin. The first part worked: he got Thanos’s attention, his ship turning away from the one that held all of Asgard, dwindling behind Loki. He managed to drag the shuttle through one portal before it broke down, and the passageway didn’t close quickly enough behind him.

From there, it was a foregone conclusion.

He didn’t recognize the one of Thanos’s Children who dragged him before their father. Not the Zen-Whoberi or the Luphomoid cyborg, and he wondered vaguely what had become of them.

“You should know better than to try to run, little frostling,” Thanos said, and Loki’s head spun.

“I ran to get away from Asgard’s King who meant to kill me before handing over your Tesseract,” Loki said, words spilling frantically out of him. “I am not so foolish as to think I could outrun you-”

“I thought,” Thanos said, his voice breaking Loki’s like a foot on a dry twig, “I had trained you better than to lie to me.”

Loki’s mouth went dry. His limbs froze. He could hear himself panting.

“Where is the Tesseract?” Thanos asked.

“Gone,” Loki said. “I threw it away rather than let it fall into your hands.”

“Corvus,” Thanos said. The Child standing beside him raised a golden bladed glaive, grabbed hold of his hair, and thrust it through his shoulder.

Loki didn’t bother not to scream. There was no point in pretending bravado; Thanos already knew him better than that.

“It’s true,” Loki said, because he didn’t have a better lie, and needed to cling to this one. “Tear me to shreds, it will still be gone. Go hunting for it elsewhere-”

The other shoulder this time, and the blade twisted, grinding against bone. Loki lunged instinctively for his magic only to be yanked back, his power smothered under greater.

“No,” Thanos said, rising. “I think not.”

He raised a hand and clenched it.

What Loki kept hidden away - his knives, small and useful trinkets, a change of clothes (just in case) - no one had ever been able to reach. It was _safe._ And this time, suddenly, it wasn’t.

It felt like the Tesseract had been embedded somewhere inside him and Thanos was tearing it out, pulling his very entrails out of him hand over hand, ribs cracking and heart tearing from his chest, something deep and vital ripped open. It couldn’t have been long but it seemed to take an eternity, and when it was over he was bent over and spitting blood and bile, every part of his body throbbing, the Tesseract’s song deafening in his ears.

“There,” Thanos said, satisfied. “Mine once more.”

_Me, or it,_ Loki thought dizzily, in the moment before he blacked out.

* * *

He didn’t die.

Of course he didn’t. That had never been the expectation.

Thanos had him staked down, spread-eagled, in what seemed to be some sort of boiler room. Or at least it was hot enough to be one, and he doubted that even Thanos would construct such a place on his ship specifically for torture. Thanos was a lot of things, but he was not a sadist.

The same could not be said for his children. He learned their names: Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, Ebony Maw, Cull Obsidian. He hated them all, though possibly Ebony Maw most of all, who clawed into his thoughts, dug out memories and twisted them into nightmares, dug out nightmares and twisted them into worse. He wasn’t sure what their purpose was, since Thanos no longer seemed to have any interest in him save prolonging his punishment. Perhaps to alleviate boredom.

He tried to think of escape. Again and again, though, he ran into the problem of resources: Whatever Thanos had done to take the Tesseract from him had broken something that was not repairing as it should. He had no weapons, no allies. No way out.

And it was very difficult to think of much when even alone he felt like a slow-roasting side of meat, drifting in and out of consciousness, pain the only source of clarity.

They did come to ask him questions eventually.  _What happened to the Reality Stone? Where is it?_ Interesting, Loki thought vaguely. So the Collector could apparently keep things hidden from even Thanos. He’d had some vague hope it was so, but it was nice to have confirmation.

_I don’t know,_ he said.  _Find it yourselves, isn’t that what you’re supposed to be good at, afraid your_ Father  _might run out of patience-_

They didn’t appreciate that. Proxima Midnight stabbed him through the thigh. And then seared the wound closed so he didn’t bleed to death. That didn’t stop the poison on the blade from roaring through his body for what felt like hours, freezing and burning in turns.

At least when they asked the questions it confirmed that they didn’t have everything they wanted yet. The universe might still be destroyed but it hadn’t been so far. Maybe between Thor and the rest of his friends some sort of defense could be mustered to stop him before it was too late.

It seemed doubtful he would be alive to see it. Even very skilled torturers could not keep a body from getting exhausted eventually, and from there it was only a slow, downhill slide to death.

Loki wondered how long it would take for him to get there. Probably a while. Even the burning was just enough to leave him in an endless cycle of blistering and healing, blistering and healing, always raw but never seared beyond that. Sweating, thirsty, dizzy, sick.

It was a thin line. Thanos’s servants likely had the benefit of practice.

How was Thor doing? Had Asgard reached Earth yet? What kind of welcome would they find there? Where would they settle?

_Not your problem anymore._

_Nothing is._

* * *

“Loki.”

He hadn’t heard his name for…a while. He’d lost track of how long it had been. They never used his name.

Someone tapped his face gently and he flinched. They stopped, saying again, more insistently, “ _Loki._ ”

“You’re not - really expecting an answer, are you?” He managed to say. The words slurred, a side-effect of his tongue swollen from perennial thirst.

“I need to know if it’s safe to move you.”

“Safe?” Loki made a strangled sound. “Nothing’s safe.”

A few beats of silence. Was this one of Ebony Maw’s manipulations? He was beginning to realize why the voice sounded familiar, and forced his eyes open. Thor was looking at him, eyebrows knitted together.

“You’re not here,” Loki informed him.

“If you want to throw something at me to prove that I am,” Thor said, with a strained attempt at humor. “Answer the question. Val’s distraction won’t last much longer.”

_Val. Valkyrie? Thor, here._ “You  _can’t_ be here,” Loki said. “Asgard needs…you need…”

“I don’t intend to be away long,” Thor said. “And Heimdall is an excellent leader. The people trust him.” His lips twitched slightly. “It was agreed that something should be done. For the savior of Asgard, you know.”

Loki blinked dazedly. Swallowing was hard. His eyes burned with moisture he didn’t have.

“Oh, fuck it,” Thor said, sounding positively Midgardian. Loki registered the grinding sound of metal snapping, the sudden release of tension. His muscles screamed and he gasped quietly, but then he was being gathered up, his head spinning, dropping limply onto Thor’s shoulder. Half healed burns flared up with agony, but this seemed real, at least so far, so he fought not to scream.

“I remember,” Thor said, his voice a vibration Loki could feel through his body as he began to move, a jogging motion that he couldn’t begrudge for all it hurt.

“What?” He mumbled, halfway between consciousness and oblivion.

“What you said,” Thor said. “You asked if I remembered what you said the day of my coronation.”

Yes. Loki did remember that, vaguely, a long while ago. He’d meant it to be a comfort, perhaps, when Thor realized what he’d done.

“Never doubt,” he mumbled.

“That’s it,” Thor said. “‘Never doubt that I love you.’ That’s what you said then.”

“I meant it,” Loki said. His body felt very heavy, and very far away. “I mean it.”

“Good,” Thor said. “So do I.”


End file.
